Among the
central questions that arose in the wake of the murder of Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin were: Could something have been done to prevent the
murder? Was there someone who knew of Yigal Amir's murder plans who did
not report this to the proper authorities, as required by law? The
State Prosecutor decided to charge Margalit Har-Shefi with a violation
of paragraph 262 of the Criminal Code of 5736-1977 (Failure to Prevent a
Crime), and the court decided to convict her, yet this conviction is not
enough to easily answer the above question, since the convicted party
never admitted to knowing of the planned murder, and she also was not
convicted of any other violation that would signal her criminal
involvement in the murder of the Prime Minister. According to the legal
tradition in Israel, no one has ever been convicted of failure to
prevent a crime without admitting to the fact, and Margalit Har-Shefi's
conviction was based solely on assessments. Another weak point in the
legal judgement was that the heads of the General Security Services had
in their hands the very same information as did the guilty party
regarding the statements of Yigal Amir, and on the basis of such
information they were not able to predict in advance the events of the
murder. How was Margalit Har-Shefi supposed to know what the heads of
the GSS were not able to know, even though they had the same information
in hand?! Despite the conviction of Margalit Har-Shefi, the heavens cry
out over the failure to bring to trial the GSS agent Avishai Raviv, who
specifically admitted that Yigal Amir told him of his intention to kill
the Prime Minister and, according to him, he took these words
seriously. If Raviv knew about this in advance, it is likely that this
matter was known to his handlers in the GSS. The Attorney General
should order a police investigation and the opening of legal proceedings
against everyone who knew of the plans for the murder and failed to do
what was required to prevent it. Even if this should involve a secret
body such as the GSS, the principles of the rule of law require the
undertaking of such an investigation and the initiation of all the
necessary legal steps in order that the truth in this matter will come
to light.
